I admit to a love-hate relationship with the subject of healthcare reform. I used to wave around the words Universal Healthcare quite a bit, and with good reason. Going uninsured in this country is a recipe for disaster, and there are indeed people who fall between the cracks in the healthcare status quo. Typically these are people who are either just a little too old to get good private insurance, or who are just a little too well-to-do to qualify for Medicaid – but still too poor to afford insurance in our vastly skewed, un-free system. This is especially true of the self-employed, a segment of the population that is essential to an evolving American economy but which faces some serious disadvantages in the healthcare market.
Anyways, Universal Healthcare seemed like a good idea, and it still does, but I’ve put a lot more thought into how to achieve broader access to healthcare and once you start doing that the inevitable questions arise: how to foot the bill – and not just the bill this year or next year, but the bill for the next hundred years. The next two hundred years. How do you increase access to healthcare and still maintain a sustainable bottom line?
